


let it be known

by jolie_unfiltrd



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: BAMF!Sansa, Because obviously all of my stuff is unbeta'd, Final Battle, In fear of typos, Living dangerously, Minor Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Mythology References, One Shot, Sansa + freedom, Unbeta'd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-01-25 19:11:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12539164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolie_unfiltrd/pseuds/jolie_unfiltrd
Summary: It was a strange sight, one that caused the battlefield to go silent, for the warriors to pause in their defensive attacks. Even the Army of the Dead swiveled their rotting skulls to watch as Sansa Stark, a gleaming broadsword strapped to her hip, bare-armed and with eyes that held a dark promise, strode towards the final horseman.Or, a priestess makes a deal and Sansa keeps her promise, in snake-skin boots.





	1. let it be known

**Author's Note:**

> I just couldn't get the picture of Sansa in snake-skin boots and armor out of my head. Inspired loosely by Ansel Elkin's poem _Autobiography of Eve_ : 
> 
> "There I heard a mysterious echo:  
> my own voice  
> singing to me from across the forbidden  
> side. I shook awake—  
> at once alive in a blaze of green fire.  
> Let it be known: I did not fall from grace.  
> I leapt  
> to freedom. "

No one had expected it to be her. Sansa walked forward slowly, feeling the gale winds whip her hair up and into the air, snakeskin boots hardly making an imprint in the snow beneath her feet. The army of the undead had stopped their endless fight forwards, weapons still raised but glowering blue eyes fixated on her, the woman kissed-by-fire stepping boldly into their midst. 

Her cloak had fallen off her shoulders in the rush of battle, but she didn’t feel the cold. She was a wolf, she was of the North, the cold could not touch her. Not now, not anymore. _This is my home, and you do not scare me._

The battlefield was frozen into stillness as she made her way towards the final horseman, eyes glowing to match her own Tully-blue, one hand resting on the hilt of her sword at her hip. She caught glimpse of Jon’s stunned face out of the corner of her eye, one hand blood-stained from the wound at his side, but she could not look at him - could not look back - could not falter once, or she’d be lost. They would all be lost. 

As Orpheus should not have looked back for his lost lady love, she could not look for hers. It made no matter now that she had never told him, never kissed his lips, never confessed the truth of her heart to him. It made no matter now whether they were siblings or cousins or strangers - though in truth, it had never mattered to her - she would never know his touch, and he would never know hers. The tears that ran down her cheeks glistened and froze, falling as icicles to the ground beneath her feet. 

The largest direwolf the world had seen padded softly up to her side, nudging her hip with his shoulder, and a small smile flitted across her lips. She fisted her free hand in his ice-soaked white fur and took comfort in his presence at her side. 

The final horseman tilted his head slowly, curiously, with a distant fury in his eyes that matched the harsh line of his mouth, the brief tightening of his decaying hands around the pommel of his skeletal mount. He dismounted, the only movement besides Sansa’s slow, steady cadence forward through the snow, and stood, his arms crossed, waiting for her. It seemed to take hours, but only a few minutes passed, and as she approached him, she drew the sword from the sheath at her hip, as gracefully as Catelyn had once danced with her husband, as nimble as Arya had once trained upon the ledges in King’s Landing, as bold as Robb in the height of his kingship, as righteous as Ned passing judgment on a traitor. 

The final horseman stepped forward to meet her, recognizing the fire and the glint in her eyes, the light seeming to burn from within the obsidian of the sword. When she stood just a few feet away, he nodded, just once, and opened his arms in supplication, closing his eyes and embracing the sweet taste of death, finally, after eons of time.

 _What do we say to the god of death? Today, old friend. Today._

She plunged the sword deep into his crystalline heart, holding it steady as she felt it pulse once, twice, then shatter. The obsidian sword shattered along with it. Sansa merely raised her arm to cover her eyes as the shards dropped to the snow, just as the army of the undead collapsed into ash. A shard pierced her side and she started in surprise - not because of pain, but because it had missed her heart. 

It was supposed to pierce her heart. 

She opened her eyes slowly, lowering her arm without wincing at the stabbing pain in her side, hardly able to notice anything but the direwolf on the ground in front of her, blood as red as his eyes streaming from a gash in his side. She collapsed on top of him, stroking his ears as she noted the blood flowing from the gash in his side, in gratitude for the beast that had saved her life, though she had been fully prepared to give it. That was the only reason the sword had been hers, after all. The only reason the priestess had given it to her; forged through love and pain, it was the only final deliverance left to them, now that the dragons had fallen. 

She had walked into battle, ready to die to save those she loved, as few as those numbers remained in this world. Arya, Bran, Brienne, Jaime, even Pod, even Daenerys - and Jon, Jon, Jon. Always Jon. 

A fresh sob escaped her, shattering the stillness and silence on the battlefield, as she realized he had lost his wolf. Something would be missing for him, forever, as it had been missing for her for years. She would have given anything to spare him that pain; she had tried to do everything to spare him any pain. But here she was, nestled over the still form of Ghost, letting her blood intermingle with his own. Sansa wondered what the price would be, to live a life borrowed, and whether it would be worse than the sword piercing her heart. 

It should have been half-agony, half-ecstasy, but she was already so familiar with the feeling - standing by as Jon returned with the Dragon Queen by his side, tucked into him like a shared rib, watching as Bran returned and Arya returned, only they might as well have been strangers to her, having everything she could have ever wanted turned to ashes, turned to dust - and she wondered if she would have felt any different. Perhaps, she had thought quietly, turning over the priestess’s offer like a white-winged missive, it could have been a relief. 

She only dimly registered the falling of the army of the undead, the way their bodies collapsed into ashes that intermingled with the falling snow, until the snowflakes themselves were tinged gray and tasted like smoke and soot and destruction and hope. The silence faded into soft murmurs, yells, triumphant shouts. Rushed embraces, rough pats on the back between warriors with cautious grins. It was over, it was finally over. 

In the chaos, she thought, she could escape - Sansa kissed Ghost on the forehead, closed his dulled eyes, and stood on shaky legs. She had barely taken two steps through the snow before she felt his eyes on her, dark and unknowable and still as easy to read as the day she had met him once more at Castle Black, but she hesitated only briefly before continuing on her way. Others would tend to his wounds, another would kiss his lips and revel in his embrace. It would not be her. 

She had done her part, she had saved them all, and now, now she was just tired. A bone-deep exhaustion from years of war, of fighting, of trying to exist in a world that seemed determine to kill them all, to murder her family and ruin their every happiness. 

Perhaps, now that she lived, she would sail across the sea and discover worlds unseen. Arya had told her about snippets of Braavos, and Daenerys about Essos, and Theon about Pyke. She had given everything to Winterfell, to her family, she had kept her vows. Let them tell her stories, let them make her into a song, she found she didn’t much care any more. She had spent her whole life just trying to stay alive; maybe now it was time to _live_.


	2. i did not fall from grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa leaves on a boat with blood in her hair, and returns three years later, snakeskin boots still laced up her calves. Her sister needs her, so she returns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is _rapidly_ shifting into something a wee bit larger than I had planned. I hope you like the next installment!

It wasn't that she meant to stay away forever, not necessarily. But she had walked from the battlefield, riding straight to White Harbor and stepping aboard the first ship she saw, to anywhere else. She didn’t care - she had seen what Westeros had to offer, had known endless pain and darkness and screaming in the night, and wanted no more of its meager offerings. Other tables, other places - if she screamed, at least she would not be seeing ghosts, begging them for absolution. 

If she screamed, and woke up alone, she would not long to knock on someone else’s door; all the people she loved were dead, or unrecognizable, or loved another. _There’s nothing left for me here._

The captain had raised an eyebrow at her snakeskin boots and bare shoulders, but the empty scabbard on her waist made him pause, made him look at her face more closely, past the hollow eyes, the razor thin cheekbones. He wondered if she knew there was blood streaked across her face like the paint before battle, that ashes clung to her skin, that she looked like a Skagosi warrior of old. 

Still - still, he thought. There was a grace to her, an elegance that belied her appearance.

He pocketed the offered coin, resisting the strange urge to bow his head, to kneel at her feet and offer his fealty to this woman with hair the color of destruction. This may not even be her. 

_Winter had fallen at last,_ the whispers said. Little birds with quick wings had made light work of the rumors, the tales, the songs that were already being written about this woman. Hair of fire, eyes of ice, and a heart that saved them all. A heart for a man who would never love her back, a sacrifice and offering to a queen with violet eyes. A fallen direwolf, blending with the snow. 

He wondered if she knew, if she had already heard the songs.

He wondered if she knew about the tears making steady tracks down her cheeks, glistening from her cerulean eyes. He opened his mouth to tell her and remembered who she was, his memory jolting in place as he stepped back. He had only been a boy when she went to the capitol, it’s true, but words of her beatings had reached even them, eventually. The murmurs of a bastard in the Vale with a stunning likeness to the Lady Catelyn, the horrified tales woven about the bastard in Winterfell. And his hounds - he winced at the memory, and left her to her solitude. To her peace, however she may find it. 

He hoped she’d find peace. 

The sun was fading into the sky, first tentative beams of orange creeping into the dawn sky, stars glimmering into light. She had never thought she’d see another sunrise, another sunset, another day. Yet her heart was pounding in her chest, her hair whipping across her face, her jaw set as she remembered the deal she had made, the promise she had broken. Unwittingly, true, but broken all the same. 

She wondered how long she’d be alive. The priestess’s words had been clear, eyes glowing a supernatural red - the Night King would fall, and so would she. Days, weeks, months - even the possibility of a future had seemed so unlikely that to contemplate it now seemed impossible. 

_Especially alone._ She had never wanted to be alone again, but chose it all the same. Chose to walk away from the only family she had, the only man she’d ever loved - she cut her thoughts off with a ferocity that would have surprised her, yet she knew, now, what she was capable of. 

It made her want to cry and leap for joy. She did neither. No longer the Lady of Winterfell, no longer the lady of anything, she was no one, now, yet years of decorum and restraint lingered in her bones. 

She wrapped her arms around her waist and pulled away in surprise, at the feel of dried blood against her side, wincing as she moved and wrenched it open once again, hissing through her teeth at the tang of sea salt against torn flesh. She’d bandage it later, she resolved, pushing the palm of her hand against her cheeks to wipe away the tears that had gathered, smearing more blood across her face. 

She wondered where they were going, but she realized, for the first time in her life, she didn’t care. She’d follow the tide where it led, the moon in the sky, and see the things she never dreamed she’d see. 

Sansa had the feeling she was living on borrowed time, and she intended to make the most of it. 

\------------

Three years passed, and a letter found her. Arya had found her. The relief that washed over her was as surprising as the tinge of bitterness that followed. 

_If you are alive, come home. I need you._

It wasn’t signed, but she had mocked Arya’s handwriting, near-illegible as it was, scratchy and spontaneous as the girl herself, since they were children. Her own had loped carefully across the parchment, taking pride in the artistry of making things pretty, by needle or quill or a simple smile on her young face.

She didn’t smile as much anymore. At least, not that smile, court-hewn and porcelain and revealing absolutely nothing. 

Now, she laughed, brazen and loud, slapping her knee in her enthusiasm. She chuckled, she snickered, she guffawed at the bawdy, badly told jokes on the docks. And she hadn’t touched a needle in years, though sometimes - when she roamed the streets, admiring the wares for sale and buying all the bread she could afford to give to whatever orphans she could find (she remembered what it was like to be hungry) - her hand would catch on a particular cloth or weave.

Her dirty fingertips would long to trace the patterns, to admire the work, but her mind betrayed her each time. _A pair of direwolves, facing each other and snarling. Hope and lost love and a misplaced dream, a wistful sigh, careful glances when she thought no one was looking._ She’d snatch up her hand and dart along to the next booth, picking up a blood orange, peeling it slowly and letting the juices run down her chin. 

Sansa Stark was no lady, not anymore. 

She did not write back (she wasn’t even sure what her handwriting looked like, nowadays) but she stepped on the next ship back to the North of Westeros. Her sister needed her, so she would go home. 

\------------

Arms crossed on the dock, leaning over the railing, her heart beat an unsteady rhythm again. _Home, home, home._

She hadn’t thought she’d come back again. 

She’d thought she’d be dead by now. 

“Ah, but it’s good to see it again. You been gone long, lass?” asked the man at her side, lichen green eyes curious as he leaned into the railing next to her, a playful grin playing around the corners of his mouth. On another day, she might have found him attractive, might have led him to her bed, might have kissed him, long and slow and sweet, as the sun went down, enjoying the taste of his lips and offering no piece of her heart in exchange for his touch. But not today. 

“Aye,” she agreed, swallowing hard and resisting the urge to run, back to the life she had made for herself, back to the days of impulse and spontaneity and living in a land where no one knew her name. She said nothing more. 

When she stepped off the boat at White Harbor, her skin was bronzed from years in the sun, a lean hardness to her body that could have only come from hard work, callouses on hands that had once needed a thin piece of metal to protect delicate skin against her own needle. Intricate braids formed back from her temple and wound down her back, reminiscent of a warrior goddess - and indeed, the people looked at her like she was one. 

The spring had been kind to the people of the North, she noted, seeing full bellies and bountiful babes and a spark in their eyes. Another image, another memory, superimposed itself - a wasteland of desolation, starving people with a look in their eyes as if they were already dead, but haunting the land as wraiths. She shuddered, blinking rapidly. 

It would be hard to not lose herself in the memories, here. She had traveled to the farthest corners of the world, had reveled in warmth and buildings made of jade and nobody knowing who she was. She had lost her nightmares along the way, had stopped shuddering each time an unfamiliar touch reached her. 

Here, they saw her, and they knew. Snakeskin boots, hair the color of a hearth fire - who else could she be? 

A whistle echoed from behind the mass of people gathered to greet their friends and family, crooning the tune of a ballad written about the last battle of the dead. Her head snapped towards the sound. It was familiar, somehow, and she found herself weaving through the crowd to identify the voice. 

Golden hair gleamed in the sun. A surprised laugh escaped from her lips as she stepped up to meet the Kingslayer. “Jaime Lannister,” she said wryly, shaking her head as she crossed her arms over her chest. Once, she had met him and been afraid, but he had rode into Winterfell and pledged his fealty to her and the Starks and, secretly, quietly, Brienne. “Or is it Jaime of Tarth, now?” She teased, unable to resist, unable to abide by any rules of decorum that had once confined her to an ivory tower of her own making. 

He threw his head back and laughed. “I’d forgotten your quick tongue,” he admitted, ruefully, before gesturing towards the horses he had tied up nearby with his good hand. “Your sister sent me to accompany you.” 

Her eyebrows knotted together briefly, before she sighed, saying only: “Bran.” 

Jaime nodded, offering a hand to help her up onto her horse, but she ignored him, throwing her leg over the saddle as if she’d been born to it, as if she hadn’t spent the better part of her days riding in a carriage, or on the back of a steady, docile garrow meant for plodding paces. 

Swiveling her hips and grabbing the reins, she knew she had been offered an opportunity that she couldn’t resist - with a glance back at Jaime, still standing on the ground with his mouth agape, she winked, clicked her heels into the horse’s side and they took off at break-neck speed towards Winterfell. She let out a whoop of unbridled joy, letting her hair flow behind her, and leaned into the mane of her steed. Jaime cursed, and mounted his horse, taking after her, easily tracking the flashes of her bright hair through the woods as they galloped on. 

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she rode, and she didn’t bother with pretending that it was just the wind. 

She was Sansa Stark of Winterfell, though she had been known by many names over the last three years, and she was going _home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. at the threshold between Paradise and Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reunion between two sisters.

Sansa stepped off the battlefield and onto a boat and no one had heard from her since. At least, that's what Arya told them all, even Jon, whenever they asked. She hadn’t really heard from her, that much was true - but she did receive the occasional gift-bearing raven. A feather, a gem, a tree branch, all with a single copper strand tied around the base. 

For her birthday, just the first year, it had been a handkerchief, stained from wind and rain, but with delicate embroidery detailing a wolf curled up with a stag. Bran had looked at it and raised his eyebrows, a curious glint in his eyes, before telling the long-hidden truth about Gendry Waters. 

Sometimes she would curl up in their chambers, pulling the furs over her shoulders and staring out into the night, cold despite the comforting heat behind her, the arm wrapped around her waist, and Gendry's hot breath on the top of her head. She never wanted this - to be the Lady of Winterfell. To help rule, to sit on a council, to make real decisions and help real people - yes. But to preside over this castle of stone surrounded by snow… that had never been her. 

It had been three years, and still, when someone said “Lady Stark,” she looked around for her sister. Arya bit her lip and buried her face into the pillow. 

Nymeria howled in the distance. She missed her pack, too. 

Arya had been furious, at first, to be the lone Stark in Winterfell, responsible for carrying it on her wiry shoulders. She had wanted to run, too, to somewhere warm and sunny - but she hadn’t spent so many years fighting to get back to her home to leave it. Not again. She stayed, as the Lady of Winterfell, and Gendry stayed at her side. 

He became as constant a fixture at Winterfell as the godswood, as steady as the sunshine on the crops, and they came back together as if they’d never been apart. Time had been kind and treacherous to them both, but she pulled him into her bed and let the small folk talk and talk and the nightmares calmed to almost nothing. 

He was still stupid, and bull-headed, and called her “milady” far too often - but he made her laugh, and forged her a new sword with direwolves dancing on the handle, and kissed her until she couldn’t breathe.

He was the one that figured it out first, waiting until they were wrapped around each other in the furs one night before presenting her with a metal direwolf pup, curled up with its nose on its paws, dwarfed in his large palm. Arya had stared at it, tilting her head, because it was _lovely but why would he_ \- 

She looked up at him with wide-eyes to catch the grin spreading across his face. (She was bull-headed and stupid sometimes, too.)

The next morning, she sent a letter to her sister. 

—

Sansa pulled up the reins to her horse sharply, more sharply than she intended, as she caught site of the re-built towers of Winterfell. New stones intermingled with the ones of her childhood, fresh clay sealing the cracks. The broken tower from the first battle, the torn tapestries from its time possessed by the Boltons - 

for a moment, it all seemed too much. A great weight pressed on her chest, her breath caught in her throat and as her vision blurred, she thought of foolish dreams and a stupid girl with songs in her head that would never come true. 

She thought only of one name, only of dark curls and broad shoulders and a cloak swept over them to match her own, of a hand that would reach for hers, of a small smile across the room when she couldn’t bear another minute, of the look in his eyes when - 

Sansa shook her head, shaking herself out of her reveries. 

She thought she had grown past this. 

Shaking her head and tossing her hair over her shoulder, Sansa pressed the edges of her sandals into the sides of her horse, lightly urging her forward, as Jaime’s horse whinnied behind her, impatient to get back to the warm stables and dry hay and surely, surely, an apple or two. Even in the summer, though it was warm enough for a Stark, it would seem brisk and overcast to anyone else. Winter had come, and the North took longer than most to shake it off. It was hard to shed something that was in your bones, in your veins, made your heart beat slower and your blood run hotter, just to survive. 

She could see, now, this was not the place she had seen in a flash of horror - there were vines growing around the broken tower, fresh flowers bright yellow against the dark stones near the gate, carefully hung and meticulously stitched banners hanging from every wall in the courtyard proclaiming for all that this was the home of Starks, snarling direwolves that would make anyone uneasy except those who had raised them by hand. She had stitched those, every one of them, in a feverish fury after they retook Winterfell, unable to sleep and entrenched in her nightmares - she would sit and stitch until her eyes closed and the darkness took her. In the morning, she’d wake before the dawn and begin again. 

As she rode through the gates and dismounted her horse, a glimpse of dark curls caught her eye and she turned, almost without thinking, towards that dark head - before setting her shoulders resolutely. He would not be here, he would be in the South, sitting next to his silver-haired queen - yet she could not help but picture him here. Despite their childhood, he was as much of a fixture of Winterfell as she - 

though, she thought, a sad smile playing about her lips, she had left, too.

Her head shot up as a scream echoed through the courtyard. Before she knew it, a dagger had found its way into her hand, and her back against the nearest wall - though no one in the courtyard seemed concerned, except Jaime, who only grabbed her elbow and ushered her towards the next wail. 

Jaime seemed to be muttering about Bran’s timing, but Sansa couldn’t hear a thing - only that the screaming sounded an awful lot like her baby sister, who had never been one to yelp at a scratch, who had never shown any sign of pain… 

They stopped abruptly at the threshold of the Lord’s Chamber, where a dark haired man with bright blue eyes was pacing back and forth and running his hands through his unruly hair. For a moment, Sansa stopped short at the sight of him, at what Robert Baratheon must have looked like in his prime. What was he doing - 

_Gendry_. His name came back to her. 

And slowly, all at once, the pieces fell together. 

She pushed her way into the room, placing a comforting hand on Gendry’s shoulder even as he looked up at her, wide-eyed and looking as if he hadn’t slept in days. 

Master Tarly turned to look at her, only a brief flash of astonished eyes, before focusing his attentions on her sister, on her hands and knees and weeping, though she did not seem to know it. Sansa came around and kneeled in front of her on the bed, grasping her hands tightly until Arya looked up at her. 

Arya merely snorted. “Bran said you’d be here for the birth of the babe, I just didn’t think you’d -“ she paused as another contraction rippled through her body. “-cut it so close.” The wry smile on her face, even as sweat dotted her brow, was more of a welcome home than Sansa thought she’d get after abandoning their home to her care and keeping. There would be time to talk, later. 

Sansa leaned up just enough to press her forehead to Arya’s, squeezing her hands tightly. “I’m here now.” 

—

Sansa cradled the baby in her arms as her sister slept soundly in the bed next to her, tracing a delicate fingertip over the seashell pink lips, the curve of the ear, the sweet eyelashes pressed closed over the most beautiful eyes. They were dark blue, though Sam assured them that eyes may change over the first year - but Sansa had a feeling they would stay blue, that this little bastard girl would grow up with dark curls and blue eyes and a mischievous heart. 

She had a niece. There was a new baby Stark in the world, and her heart warmed at the thought that Winterfell would start to hear, once more, the pitter-patter of little feet rampaging around the castle. Though Arya had said a few things, towards the end - well, yelled them, really, through the door at Gendry - that this babe had not been conceived on purpose, she didn’t think this would be the only one. 

The door opened and a dark-haired man slipped in. Without looking up, she asked teasingly, “Gendry, can’t I hold her for a little longer -“ 

“I came as soon as I heard Arya was - Sansa?” 

His broken voice tripped over her name. His hair was pulled back from his face, he had a new scar tracking across his left eye, but there was no mistaking the man in front of her. She swallowed heavily and felt all of the breathe leave her lungs as she met his gaze squarely, meeting his grey eyes and speaking with a bravery she did not feel: 

“Jon.” 

He exhaled - and the only sound in the room was the quiet hiccups of the babe in her arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO sorry for the wait on this chapter - but the good news is that I'm feeling v inspired and hopefully the final installment should be up _much_ sooner! Please let me know what you think - I'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback  <3 
> 
> as always, you can come fangirl with me @ my tumblr: jolieunfiltrd (honestly it's mostly avengers right now because where i live i won't be able to see it for LITERAL MONTHS and also i'm finding out about grad school in two weeks and so its a lot of inspirational quotes lol just cross your fingers for me k thnks)


	4. singing to me across the forbidden side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon & Sansa reunite.

She held his eyes as long as she dared - one heartbeat, two - before the silence that surrounded them overwhelmed her, shook her courage and her gaze dropped to the babe in her arms, tiny fingertips wrapped around the tip of her own. 

Jon did not approach, only cleared his throat before saying, “I didn’t know you’d be here.” 

Yet a twist of bitterness clenched her heart as she wondered if he would not have come, had he known. If the sight of her face, with its echoes of the hopes it had held before, was so awful to look upon. She had thought, over the years, that he had to have known, had to have seen the look on her face when he walked in at Daenerys’s side and known that betrayal of that tinge only came from a certain type of love. 

He had not come to her, had barely spoken to her - and she was convinced she must have embarrassed him, somehow, to love him so fiercely. So she made a deal to die with a priestess she would have rather seen burned alive for her crimes; she took a bloodied sword out of the flames. She would never shake this love from her chest - the weight of it both leaden in her bones and wings from her shoulders, so she thought she might as well use it for something good, something destructive and powerful and terrifying, all at once. 

But she remembered, as she stroked the little babe’s rosy cheek and idly wondered if there would be new direwolf pups running in the woods this spring, the tears she had wept over the great white wolf who died in her place. She remembered that she had walked past Jon with his wolf’s blood on her hands, strands of white fur gleaming against the copper of her hair. 

She raised her eyes. “I’m sorry about Ghost,” she said, voice steady even as it wanted to quiver and break. She knew the pain of losing a wolf, nearly twice now, as the direwolf had been a near-constant companion the last year of the war. It had been a struggle, after she left, learning to fall asleep without his weight at her side. 

Jon thanked her quietly, voice filled with longing and sadness enough wonder to show her he hadn’t been expecting her apology - and she wondered what he did expect of her. Wondered if he had thought of her at all. 

The babe in her arms - as yet unnamed by either of her exhausted parents - began to stir, and Arya blearily rubbed her eyes before reaching out her arms. Sansa shifted the little girl over to her sister gently, before carefully standing off of the bed and gesturing for Jon to follow her, to leave the new mother to her rest, the babe content at her mother’s breast, listening to the heartbeat of indomitable, untenable love. 

Sansa stood for only a moment outside her sister’s door before leaning against the wall, closing her eyes and leaning her head back. She had not birthed the babe, true, but she had been by her sister’s side - and it was far more tiring than she would have expected. Judging by the way the sunlight splayed on the wall, it couldn’t be much past dinner - but she didn’t know how to estimate the days here, in the summer, where the light was abundant and laughter loud and spirits carefree. 

Somehow, joy made more sense across the sea - they did not know the threat of death in the night, men who rose again with glowing eyes, a chill that overtook your bones and convinced you hope was a dead thing, too. But here, with the scars of the past still proudly displayed and patched over, flowers growing anew, she didn’t quite know how to make sense of this new world. 

The man in front of her was the only thing that had ever made sense in their ravaged, war-torn world. In the darkness, in the cold, he had been there, had fought with her and held her hand and rode into battle with her cloak on his shoulders. She had told him not to go, that idiot, but he had and returned with a new Queen at his side and she didn’t understand what had changed. 

Only she could see with fury-clear eyes that he had never been hers, not really. 

She pulled her braid over her shoulder, untying the leather at the bottom before beginning to re-do the intricate style, intentionally keeping her eyes at the floor near his boots as she said, “You look well, Jon.” 

And he did. The faded scar across his left eye suited him, his dark hair was pulled back neatly from his face, the tunic in - what else? - black, the lightest garment she had seen him wear, fit well across his broad shoulders. If she looked closely, if she dared, she could see her handiwork in the collar, the dancing dark wolves bounding around each other joyfully. Odd, that he would wear that now, the Targaryen prince, the King of Westeros. 

“You look… alive,” Jon replied, the words spilling out of his mouth unbidden. 

Her eyes flickered up to his, noting the chagrined look on his face, the puzzled tilt of his eyes, the curious half-smile threatening to lift his brooding mouth. 

“Yes,” she allowed, before shaking her head. She knew what he was saying, knew what he left between them unspoken. He had known of the priestess, though he hadn’t known the specifics of the deal she made. “I wasn’t… I should have died that day.” Her eyes met his solidly, and her hand tightened around the end of her braid as she resisted the urge to reach for his hand, acutely aware of each inch between them. “If it weren’t for Ghost,” she said quietly, “I would have.” 

A pained look crossed his face. He glanced down at the ground before he met her gaze and nodded squarely. “He was as much your wolf as mine, at the end.” 

A sad smile flashed upon her lips as she recalled the way Ghost had slept pressed up against her, the size of a bear but docile as a lamb when she ordered him to obey, to stay, to get down, boy. She missed him, she imagined Jon did, too. 

Starks with no direwolves, a Targaryen with no dragon - she wondered if he felt as empty and hollow as she did, sometimes. 

“Still,” Sansa said, pressing forward and resting her hand gently on his shoulder, “I’m sorry.” 

Jon’s hand came up slowly to rest on hers, the touch of his bare skin on hers sending a spark down the back of her neck, as his eyes locked on hers in wonder. “I… I should be the one to apologize to you. If I had fought harder, or gotten to you in time, you wouldn’t have had to -“ he shook his head, seemingly to himself, before continuing on, voice full of gratitude. “You saved us all, Sansa. You ended the war.” 

She hated that. The songs that had been written over-simplified things, ignored the lives that were lost, made her tale into a pretty song that held nothing of the gruesome truth. She did it because she had to, because she had people she loved that she was willing to die for. Had anyone else been approached by the priestess, they would have done it too. 

Sansa moved to step back from him, shaking her head, but his hand tightened around her own and his other hand came to rest gently on her waist, keeping her toes mere inches from his, her eyes close enough that she could see the lines around his eyes, the sadness in their depths. The way he met her gaze, head-on, stole the breath from her lungs and stopped her heart. 

There was an honesty in his gaze that she hadn’t seen for a long time. 

“Sansa, I…” Jon leaned forward until their foreheads touched, and he closed his eyes and let the words spill out between them. “I never thought I’d see you again.” 

“I never thought I’d see you,” she whispered truthfully, breathily, ruefully. She’d thought she could run from her heart and leave it here to freeze - but it seemed to have thawed and flourished without her permission. 

He looked as if he was about to confess some great weight from his shoulders, so she interrupted, lips quirking upwards at the surprise in his eyes. She is certainly not the same lady he had known - though maybe the snakeskin boots should have hinted at that. 

“I thought you'd rule from King’s Landing with Daenerys, and you know I’ll never go South again.” 

“But you’ll go anywhere else?” he said teasingly. 

She couldn’t help herself and a laugh escaped her lips, short and surprised. “Aye, it seems so.” 

He laughed in response, and she smiled just to see the broad grin that stretched across his mouth. _Gods, she had missed that smile._

His thumb absentmindedly stroked the curve of her hip and she held still as a deer on a spring morning, ears perked forward, alert of any hunter approaching with his bow. Jon drew his arrow and hit with merciless force. 

“I haven’t gone South since Dragonstone, years ago. And I haven’t seen Daenerys since just after the final battle, when she rode to take the Iron Throne - or what was left of it -“ 

“I thought you and -“ 

A rueful grin crossed Jon’s face, full of more regret than she would have anticipated. “Aye, everyone thought that.” He paused, before a genuine smile overtook his brooding face. “Can I join you?” 

“What?” She had never seen him smile like this before, not this much. She couldn’t help but wonder what changes had been wrought in him in the years between them, if this near-cheerful Jon was the same brooding, dark Jon that she had left in her wake. 

“Can I come with you, when you leave again?” 

“I - I don’t understand. What about - Jon, you’re _King_ , you can’t just _leave_ , and what about Daenerys -“ 

Jon laughed again, startling her into silence. “Did you not hear anything after you left?” 

“I - no, I kept away from news, I didn’t want to hear it.” 

He only nodded. He knew what it was like to avoid the ghosts at every turn. 

“I’m not king, not of anything. And Daenerys…” his gaze grew serious, eyes pleading. “There was never anything between us, not really. We needed dragons, and I thought, Melisandre thought, that she was the Princess That Was Promised and I swore to keep our family safe and I thought that meant keeping her by our side - ” 

_There was never anything between us_. His words echoed in her ears, over and over again - and she remembered, could see with perfect clarity, the way the petite dragon queen had clung to his arm, how deep in his cups he had gotten, the way he had lingered in the halls at night, seemingly never sleeping, the way Jon had looked to her for forgiveness… and the truth slid into place as a veil being lifted from her eyes. 

“We were wrong, we were all so wrong.” He paused, seeing the confusion in her eyes, and maybe the hope. “ _You_ were the Princess That Was Promised, Sansa.” 

Sansa only nodded once, shrugging her shoulders lightly. Melisandre had implied as much as she pulled the sword from the flames. She didn’t understand how or why - but it had saved them, and that was enough for her. She swallowed as she wondered what else he thought had been wrong - had it been her heart, stuttering in her chest. 

Yet - his hand still rested on the curve of her waist, his other hand clasping her own where it lay on his shoulder, his forehead mere inches of hers. He held her like he was afraid she was made of mist, about to dissolve into the ether and disappear once more, held her as if he meant to tether her to the earth with his touch. 

He wouldn’t stand like this with Arya, of that she was certain. 

But it had been _three years_. If it wasn’t Daenerys, surely some other woman had - 

Surely there was nothing in his heart for her, his not-sister, his cousin, not after all this time - 

The sound of a babe crying in the room behind them and hurried footsteps down the hall startled them from their embrace. Sansa welcomed the space to calm her frantic pulse. 

“Jon!” Gendry called out as he approached, delighted and exhausted and beaming with pride, nodding in acknowledgment to Sansa and offering her a warm smile. He had been worried she wouldn’t make it, but the sight of her copper hair flashing before him had been a welcome sight after Arya had banished him from the room. 

“Gendry,” Jon replied warmly, clasping his friend’s hand before pulling him in for a tight hug. 

“Have you seen her yet?” 

Jon shook his head, and said, “They were both sleeping when I arrived.” 

A loud wail echoed through the halls and they all laughed a little. “Sounds like the babe is awake now.” Arya called out Gendry’s name sharply, and he winced but smiled affectionately. “And Arya, too. I’d better hurry before she makes good on her threat to geld me.” He winked at them before heading back into the bedchamber, leaving the door open behind him. 

Sansa moved to follow directly after him, avoiding Jon’s eyes, but stopped when she felt a hand encircle her wrist. 

She looked over her shoulder at him, eyes downcast, feeling like a frightened deer about to bolt, but the softness of his face and warmth in his eyes drained the tension from her shoulders. What was she afraid of? This was just Jon. 

He spoke softly into the space between them. “You don’t have to give me an answer right away, but I meant what I said.” 

Her brow scrunched together and she turned to face him once again. He raised tender hands to cup each side of her face, watching for her reaction - the Sansa of three years ago didn’t care to be touched, and even now, she still occasionally jolted at the feel of another’s hands. But she only leaned into his touch and looked at him with wide eyes. 

“I don’t intend on letting you out of my sight again, not now that I know you’re alive.” 

His gaze darted down to her lips, and back up to her eyes, hesitant and bold and apologetic and wanting and asking permission and she found herself running the tip of her tongue across her lips, her eyes lingering on the fullness of his mouth. 

“If you want me, I’ll follow you anywhere,” he murmured before closing the gap between them and kissing her like she had always dreamed. It was a kiss filled with salvation and hope and grace and apologies for lost time between them, a kiss that called her heart from its cage to beat anew. 

He pulled back after a moment, staring at her with that same soft gray look that reminded her only of home, his thumb running across her hipbone and a bright smile broadening his face. She exhaled sharply and tried to corral her thoughts but they ran like wild horses.

“Sansa!” Arya’s voice rang out from the bedchamber - full of laughter as she teased Gendry for cradling their new babe so delicately. “Are you coming?” 

She took a deep breath and pressed a brief kiss to Jon’s lips, unable to prevent the smile stretching across her face. “Yes,” she whispered, watching as her joy was mirrored on his face. “Yes, I want you, yes, come with me whenever I go, wherever I go.” 

_Where will we go_ , she thought to herself as they turned into the room together, echoes of promises made long ago coming to fruition, coming to fulfillment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so _so_ much for reading!! it means the world to me. i hope you enjoyed it - and if you didn't, feel free to let me know why. constructive crit is always welcome!! 
> 
> you can come fangirl with me @ my tumblr: jolieunfiltrd (but be warned it's very captain america/sansa stark meta heavy right now)

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at tumblr: jolieunfiltrd  
> thanks for reading!


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